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Welcome to USAGOLD's "Gilded
Opinion" pages.
We invite you to browse our index
of outstanding gold-based commentary.
(Back to Holger Jensen Index)
While we find Mr. Jensen's columns particularly informative with respect to foreign affairs, his opinions do not necessarily represent those of Centennial Precious Metals, USAGOLD, its management and clientele.
INSIDE FOREIGN AFFAIRS
World leaders heap scorn
on Zimbabwe vote results
by Holger Jensen, International Editor
President Bush is still consulting with allies on how to respond to Zimbabwe's stolen election, but other nations have begun piling the pressure on President Robert Mugabe.
The Commonwealth, composed mostly of former British colonies covering nearly a third of the world, humiliated the 78-year-old despot by suspending Zimbabwe for a year and calling for new elections.
Denmark closed its embassy in Zimbabwe and shut off economic aid. Switzerland froze any assets Mugabe and his inner circle might have in that country and joined in a travel ban imposed by the United States and European Union before the election.
Suspension from the Commonwealth is largely symbolic because few penalties are attached. But it was a stinging personal rebuff to Mugabe because it came from two African leaders he had previously regarded as friends and allies in his battle against "white imperialism."
The Commonwealth task force that recommended the suspension was made up of Australian Prime Minister John Howard, President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa and President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria.
Howard, the leader of the troika, is unimportant to Mugabe, who considers him a lackey of Britain. Australia is routinely dismissed by Zimbabwe's official press as a "British dominion" and thus part of the "Western conspiracy" that seeks to restore colonial rule in Zimbabwe, according to Mugabe's carefully spun mythology.
But Mugabe had always counted on the support of neighboring South Africa, the continent's richest nation, and Nigeria, its most populous.
Mbeki's African National Congress and Mugabe's ZANU-PF had been allies since the 1960s, when both were fighting white minority regimes. Some of Mbeki's top lieutenants had already recognized Mugabe's election victory as legitimate and congratulated him on what he called his "stunning blow to imperialism."
Obasanjo's betrayal stung even more because Mugabe idolized him. In an interview with a Lagos newspaper last year, he praised the Nigerian leader as his "master," saying: "You are the one who taught us how to fight the white man." Now the master, in Mugabe's view, has rallied behind the white man against an African brother.
The Commonwealth groups 50 developing countries from Africa, Asia and the Pacific alongside four developed ones: Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Supporters say it offers a platform for joint action on worldwide problems such as poverty and AIDS. But critics say it is a redundant relic of the British Empire, a difficult mix of rich and poor nations with sharply diverging priorities.
Eleven years ago, at a meeting hosted by Mugabe, the Commonwealth pledged to uphold "the rule of law and the independence of judiciary, just and honest government and fundamental human rights." It backed that up by suspending Nigeria in 1995, when it was under military rule, and Fiji and Pakistan for coups that ousted their elected governments in 1999 and 2000.
However, Zimbabwe had always escaped censure even though Mugabe's regime was neither honest nor just and often operated above the law. Steeped in corruption and ruthless with political opponents, it killed, tortured and terrorized the president's foes, ignored court orders, fired judges who ruled against the government and unleashed lawless mobs of war veterans to seize white-owned farms and intimidate the growing black opposition movement.
Faced with convincing evidence that Mugabe was rigging his re-election, Britain, Australia and New Zealand demanded Zimbabwe's suspension at a Commonwealth summit a week before the vote. But all the African nations banded together to protect Mugabe. Saying it would be unfair to judge the election before it happened, they created the three-nation task force to rule on its validity after the vote.
Even then, Mbeki and Obasanjo gave Mugabe one last chance to avoid suspension by trying to persuade him to invite his opponents into a government of national unity.
Only when he refused did they fly to London and signal their acceptance of the Commonwealth election observers' report. It cited political violence and other irregularities, concluding that "conditions in Zimbabwe did not adequately allow for a free expression of will by the electors."
Now that Africa's two most influential leaders have turned their backs on Mugabe, others are bound to follow.
March 21, 2002
Send your questions to international editor Holger Jensen, who will answer one each day. E-mail: hjens@aol.com
Copyright © 2002 The E.W. Scripps Co. All Rights Reserved.
Reprinted by USAGOLD with permission of Mr. Jensen. No further reproduction without permission.
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